


love ain't fair (so there)

by newyorktopaloalto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologizing and Forgiveness, Department of Mysteries, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, Eventual Romance, Fights, Friendship, Grief and Loss, Hallucinations, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Herbologist Neville Longbottom, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Language, M/M, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Potions, Potions Master Draco Malfoy, Pre-Relationship, Rare Pairings, Seer Draco Malfoy, Slow Burn, Trauma, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Unspeakable Hermione Granger, Unspeakable Pansy Parkinson, War Aftermath, bottleneck fic, potionsbabble, probation, research and development
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-06-29 21:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15738129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorktopaloalto/pseuds/newyorktopaloalto
Summary: A decade after the end of the war—whittling away what he once was to whoever he was now—Draco Malfoy had managed to at least make his skillset invaluable to the magical world; a freelance potions master with a hold in Granger's department at the Department of Mysteries, Draco spent his time away from that with research of his own: the study of muggle pharmaceuticals in combination with his own potions, to develop more effective medications for the magical community. Due the nature of the potions he worked on, and the various governmental contracts that legally bound him to their regulations, it took more than just a cock up or flight of fancy to gallivant about telling all and sundry about it all.So Granger? Must have had either a death wish or a damn bloody good reason for her to send Neville Longbottom to his office with more specifics than anyone uninvolved in their project should have.[Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom work together on a highly involved potions matter—it's not quite as terrible as either of them expected. - On Semi Hiatus]





	1. it makes no sense

**Author's Note:**

> This is, technically, my first HP fic ever. Which is crazy because I started reading it like 17 years ago and have been involved in fandom for a fair bit of that time. I don't own any of this, except for Draco's mental problems, which I take full credit for. 
> 
> I wanted to do something new, and so this fic is started on the basis that I would take one setting (Draco Malfoy's office and lab) and have the entirety of the fic take place in that set of rooms; in essence, it's a bottleneck fic.This first chapter is definitely a lot of set-up, jsyk. 
> 
> Title from Gyote's Heart's a Mess. 
> 
> Hope everyone enjoys!

“Draco Malfoy." 

The tarot cards, having previously been shuffling themselves idly, perked up and started arranging themselves into a spread reminiscent of creeper vines, before Draco Malfoy—part-time potioneer, though recently that part-time dwindled down to no-time as his involvement and research into his own projects took precedence over what little work from the Department of Mysteries he usually partook in—looked up from the tome-like book that had been blurring in and out of his focus for the last half of an hour. His eyebrow raised, and by the uncomfortable shift Neville Longbottom exhibited at the motion, it contained more than the bemused incredulity at seeing the familiar face.

"Neville Longbottom," he replied, forcing himself to nod in a sort of overture for the other man to take the currently cleaning itself off chair on the far side of his desk. 

"What," he paused, parsing out what he was going to say, but Longbottom interrupted him before he could manage something that wouldn't sound ostentatiously scathing. 

"You're the one that made GR-63B, right Malfoy?" 

The eyebrow on the left side of his face joined its brother on the right, and he widened his eyes slightly—only partially calculated—for the bit of manic intensity that he still managed to uphold despite it all. "Granger's a blabbermouth for someone who works in the Department of Mysteries." 

Longbottom's eyes narrowed as his hand twitched—only slightly, but Draco had lived a long time with only subtle motions towards hidden wands to be anything less than hyper aware of any movements—as though Draco had said something much worse than what had actually come out of his mouth. Which, honestly, fair, but he _hadn't_ , and he hadn't even thought about it before saying something else, and he felt as though that meant at least something. 

"She wouldn't usually, but—" 

"But it's important," Draco finished sardonically, crossing his arms in front of his chest despite the niggling interest that did its best to draw him into whatever tangled web it wove. He knew it was important, didn't really believe Granger would talk about something more than a little classified unless whomever needed the information had a damn good reason—Granger didn't have the desire to be fired, which would be the likely outcome if Needleham found out that she told a civilian about the inner workings of their department. 

"Why?"

"It's classified." Longbottom had the decency to look sheepish at the reply, and Draco had to wonder at the other man's supposed civilian status, if he was a civilian as purported to be—those did, after all, make the best sorts of spies. He narrowed his eyes. 

"Is it classified classified, or you don't want me to know classified?" 

A pause. "I'll tell you after I find out if you can actually do anything or not." 

Interesting. 

"What's your question, then? You work privately with some herbalogical company, so I can only presume you have associates to go over issues with." 

"Not when it's on your own time and you're splicing Hellebore and poppies." 

Draco blinked, blinked again, and a third time for good measure, trying—and failing— to fathom of a reason for splicing the two of them together. 

"And they, rightfully, believe you off your rocker for doing so?" 

He didn't feel bad for saying it, and his resolve only increased when all Longbottom graced him with was a rueful smile, as though in agreement with his assessment. Hellebore and poppies were, he supposed, theoretically possible to crossbreed, especially if magic agricultural methods were involved, but it seemed like a needless venture for a plant that he could only imagine would cause—

"Paralysis?" He shook his head at himself and ignored Longbottom's sharp look at the sudden question. "No, that's not right, not physically, only interpreted that way." He paused again, turning on his heel to look for a book that wasn't actually in his office, before finding his way to the other side of his desk where Longbottom was standing, almost stock still, following his movements with a wariness that threw Draco for a second, made him pause and open his mouth, before remembering who he was dealing with—this wasn't someone whom he had only known as an adult, but one whom he had bullied mercilessly for almost six years— and pointedly reining himself in from a limply scathing comment. 

"A psycho-paralytic?" He asked instead, leaning against the edge of his desk and glancing at the now motionless cards hovering in his peripheral. "What does that have to do with the potion I made?" 

"I'm hoping your potion would be able to stabilize what I'm attempting to create." 

"What are you attempting to create?" he asked before he could help himself, the vagueness of Longbottom's answer piquing his interest more than a straight out answer ever would have, and—he narrowed his eyes—by the almost hidden twist of the other man's lips, Longbottom knew it as well. 

"A mind paralytic, essentially. Something that makes someone's autonomous magical response to outside stimuli, well, cease." 

"That's—" Draco tilted his head and caught a flash of a single card turning itself over, as though waiting for that moment to reveal itself—considering it was Draco's own innate magic, the melodrama of it all didn't really surprise him. 

"Fine."

"Fine?" It sounded strangled, and Draco dragged his gaze over to where the brunet was standing, robes a little baggy and starkly reminiscent of being seventeen that Draco found himself looking into Longbottom's face rather than the almost emaciated figure he had seen out of the corners of his eyes, skulking in and out of hallways while Draco laughed harder than he would have otherwise at the Carrow's actions—because that's all he could do, all he could ever do because it took a war for him to figure out what was real and what was dragon shit. He swallowed and pretended not to notice Longbottom pretending not to notice Draco's sudden inattention. 

"'Fine,' like 'fine, I'll help you.'"

"No questions?" It was suspicious. 

"Loads of questions," Draco iterated, shrugging in a disciplined motion to make him seem more approachable—it worked well with strangers, but with Longbottom it didn't do much more than garner him a bemused look. "They can wait, though."

He shrugged again, this time more naturally and added, flippant: 'Granger would only tell you if it were for some ever-so-righteous cause or crusade or whatever it is you Gryffindors find yourselves engaged with.' 

"Not very Slytherin of you to let it go, not when you can get more information," Longbottom pointed out, resting his hands on the back edge of the chair Draco had so graciously offered him not just five minutes ago. 

"It is when I know my show of trust wins more than what little you would give me now, without it," he countered, finally giving up on the subtle clues for the other to sit down, for Merlin's sake—it was making Draco more than a little uncomfortable having to stand and think about the movements of the entirety of his body as opposed to just the upper half. 

Gesturing grandly to the kettle in the corner, he grunted as Longbottom shook his head, and proceeded to make his own tea. 

"What _are_ those, by the way?" He heard from behind him—closer than he expected, and his hand gripped the mug tighter for a moment as he got his heart rate under control. How, in any hell, did Neville fucking Longbottom manage to sneak up on him? Draco must have been aeons more distracted than he had previously thought possible after everything. 

"Sorry."

"It's fine." His reply was sharp as he finally loosened his hold, the acrid taste in his esophagus only fading once the water started pouring from the kettle into the mug he was holding. 

"And they're tarot cards." 

"What're they?" 

"They're—" he licked his lips, "it's a divination thing." 

He turned around as Longbottom raised his brows; Draco was mildly pleased that the other was incapable of raising the one, but stifled the smile the other man's action caused. 

"You didn't take that class in school." 

"I don't interpret the cards the way Hogwarts teaches." 

The silence between them was just short of smothering, and they stood, awkwardly, on either side of Draco's office as the space seemed to both cleave them closer together and engulf them into a divide, until Longbottom cleared his throat. 

"The only problem would be suppressing magical output without creating, well, something like an Obscurus—" 

"Isn't that in children?" Longbottom sounded both horrified and interested; Draco understood the other man's intrigued repulsion of the phenomena—Longbottom had, after all, likely grown up on the same stories the other pure blooded children did, and nothing was ever to be more compelling to a child with burgeoning magic than the children who became host to such a creature. 

"I'm assuming that there aren't many adults suppressing their magic," Draco replied, attempting a sort of languid demeanor now that he had tea firmly in his hands and soon to be in his stomach. "I don't know of any cases, at least. But it's something to consider if unintentional magical output and suppression thereof is your main concern.

"I'm not an expert, though," he finished easily, taking a sip of his tea to cover his smirk at Longbottom's utter bewilderment. 

"You're being..." he trailed off. 

"Tolerable?" Draco offered, wry, a little self-effacing, but mostly with the acknowledgment of his previous behavior and actions. 

"That's one way to put it," Longbottom snorted, and despite himself, Draco smiled a little bit. 

"I would apologize, you know, for all the years, but—" he snorted. 

"Yeah." 

Another pause. 

"And anyway, Malfoy, what you did seventh year, you know..." 

Draco stiffened. "I didn't like the Carrows, that was all." 

"Yeah." 

By Longbottom's tone, he didn't quite believe that. Draco didn't know if he quite believed it as well. 

"The issue stems from long-term exposure to the Cruciatus curse," Longbottom proffered, finally taking the seat that even Draco's things had given up on and started piling themselves onto once more, and jumping at the quill that had undoubtedly poked him in the bum. 

"They started to give off magical outbursts but they're all—destructive." 

"Who?" Draco asked inelegantly, before cussing himself out as a flash of tangled black hair and a high-pitched cackle permeated through his senses; his fingers twitched into a curve for a wand that wasn't there at almost the exact moment he saw Longbottom's eyelid twitch.

"Never mind," he continued, waving away whatever might have come out of the other man's mouth.

"So you want GR-63B as a base to make your paralytic?" 

Longbottom squinted at Draco, who found himself, embarrassingly, standing straighter under the added scrutiny—a thin layer of perspiration gathered at his temples and he pressed his jaw out against the sudden rushing in his ears. Coughing into his hand to stem the faint flush he felt gathering at the high bridge of his nose—what he wouldn't give for a nice pair of glasses to better defend himself against his body's betrayal—he pressed his lips and managed a stare as though simply deigning to this embarrassment. Resisting the urge to shift his weight, he bore feeling like a specimen for whatever the idiotic Gryffindor was sizing him up against; Draco had seen that particular look too many times not to know what it entailed, but never thought he would have to bare the brunt of it—not after having spent so many years actively avoiding being a confidant to anyone other than those who had known him before his first acne scar. 

"I did," Longbottom began, and Draco found himself bristling at the implication that he had done something to suddenly warrant his refusal to ask now, then found himself bristling at himself for actually caring about the other man's dumb opinion of him and actually considering this project as something mildly interesting rather than an unwelcome imposition, "but I'd like, instead, for you to work with me on this. I never considered—" he furrowed his brow and paused, "no one ever considered the issues of suppression." 

"Yeah, well," Draco shrugged, mildly embarrassed without knowing why. 

He paused for a moment, knowing that saying yes would interrupt whatever little free time he managed to scrounge up for himself whenever his research hit a dead end or he felt himself going mildly insane—well, more so than he usually seemed to be. Saying yes would be seeing and interacting with Neville Longbottom for an indeterminate amount of time as they worked on a highly volatile substance that would sometimes demand his full attention and a delicacy that came only from years of precise, accurate, potions work. Saying yes would mean Gryffindors, memories of school years he wish he could obliviate from his mind on his bad days and knew he deserved on his good ones, and trying to force conversation with someone whom he had tormented for most of their formative years; Neville Longbottom had never been his main target, Draco hadn't felt him worthy of anything more than nominal attention, but on some days—fixing his gaze on the twenty-seven year old version of the boy he thought pathetic in their youth— he could imagine how that could be worse. 

"I'll do it," he said, voicing his decision quickly, before he could find some excuse to back out. "I'd be happy to help." 

Longbottom smiled, mostly pleased but with a hint of bewilderment that made Draco more uncomfortable, a little like wishing the bewilderment weren't there—the stares, the crossing the street as he passed, the hisses, weren't there—than he would like to admit. But he felt as though, at least once more and for something like _this_ , he could afford to be uncomfortable—maybe doing it for a cause would make it easier. Or something. 


	2. but i'm desperate to connect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So while this chapter didn't get away from me, per se, it did introduce a new element that I did not have planned; I think it will be interesting, however, and so I've decided to keep it. 
> 
> A couple of notes at the end, and while they're not triggers, they're about Draco's mental health, so if you'd like to take a gander before the chapter, it's available to do so. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! It's getting real now, haha.

"D'ya mind if I put up more light?"

Draco shook his head, watching at the little bell jar of light Longbottom conjured up at his makeshift work space. The last month, while still a little more than awkward on both of their parts, had been more than tolerable—Draco was happy to admit this freely to himself, if for no other reason than that it proved he was more than capable of being an adult and put his own childish pettiness and pigheadedness somewhere in his nebulously incoherent past of derision and fascist ancestry. 

"I don't know how you Slytherins did it in the dungeons," Longbottom continued, blithely twirling his quill around his fingers, seemingly unawares of Draco's eyes following the motions with barely-concealed interest; the fidgeting seemed to be nothing more than a nervous habit, but there was something about Longbottom's movements that made it seem more graceful than the gesture usually was—more graceful than the man usually was. 

"Don't need light to do it," came out of Draco's mouth before he could remember that he and Longbottom were hardly acquaintances, let alone friends. 

Longbottom snorted out a laugh, which was markedly less grating than it was overheard as a teenager, and Draco realized that he must have grown into it; were he one to get particularly maudlin, he would opine for awhile about how they all grew into things and grew out of others, only to have the lull in the aftermath of the war take the breath from their lungs like a bludger to the chest, cracking a few ribs on its way to the very core of their being. Draco's huff of a laugh, both unwilling and unable to do any more in present company, took a bit longer to come by than Longbottom's own, but he felt some weird pride in being able to do so at all. 

"Huh."

He stopped laughing, acutely aware of Longbottom having had been the one to speak. He was being stared at again, and he was so wrong because being uncomfortable, even for a cause, was a horrid experience. 

"What?" 

Longbottom put his hands up in an obviously placating maneuver, but there was something in the expression he had employed along with it that saved him from most of Draco's outward ire—it was something that reminded Draco a little bit of waking up in the windowsill in the middle of summer; it was something like warmth. 

"Nothing."

Draco didn't believe him in any manner or capacity, but he clenched his fists and let it slide—it didn't take all that much out of him to not be overtly contrarian, after all, but it took into his early adult years to really grasp that fact as it applied to normal persons, persons other than the fanatics that had lived in his house. Nothing, for today, would have to do. 

* * *

“Darling, this is a disarray.” 

Draco's tarot cards shifted from their idle spinning—their state of flux was disconcerting, but could not, he suspected, be something without precedent—in order to arrange themselves in precise rows as the two hooded women sauntered into his office. The shorter one, immediately and without a seeming care for either her own garment or the chaise which she threw it on, shucked off her outer robe and revealed herself to be, unsurprisingly—even with the glamour covering the robe—Pansy Parkinson; Granger, hair popping out before any other part of her body, took a more delicate approach with taking off her own glamoured robe, folding it primly under her arm, placid in Pansy's impatience. 

“Parkinson, Granger,” he nodded to each of them in turn, holding his arms tightly against one another behind his back, “how can I be of assistance?” 

“Get some light in here,” Pansy tsk'ed, crossing the room until only the desk was separating the two of them, “you look pale.” 

“I've had an interesting time of it lately,” Draco explained, as though his words meant anything more than more confusion to the two women, “and thus have been in,” he gestured around, “here mostly.

“How are you two ladies?” 

“Fine, fine.” Pansy waved him away easily, eyeing Draco up as he pursed his lips in retaliation, his spine straightening out—for the first time in quite awhile, if his creaking spine were an indication of usage—as he faced against one of his fiercest opponents. “We need your help.” 

“With what?” 

His arms made his way to his front, crossing his chest in a posture of mock imperiousness, knowing that Pansy, if probably not Granger, would take the gesture for what it was. Granger's lips quirked up and Draco wondered at how it was that the woman managed to seemingly know everything, even things that she actually had no business of knowing. 

“This.” 

Granger handed him a vial filled with a incandescent, blue, viscous, liquid that Draco absolutely could not recognize. He waved his hand, a small ball of light now illuminating the vial that he had float in a slow rotation, so he could more properly study what was in the vial. It shimmered, flecks of sparkle slowly turning as the liquid did. 

“What is it?” he asked, unable to tear his gaze away from it; irrationally, he could feel himself having to physically pull his hand away from where it wanted to creep up and open the stopper. “Is there a charm on this?” 

“You noticed it too?” Granger asked, an almost inaudible note of relief in her voice. 

“Obviously.” 

Irritated, Draco shoved his hands into his pockets. “What did you just put into my possession?” 

“We don't know.” 

Pansy didn't usually take a grave note on a serious sentiment, preferring the more faux flippant attitude that meant she didn't care either way what was happening. Draco eyed the both of them wearily, head tilting almost parallel to the floor at Granger's shifting from foot-to-foot. 

“What?” he asked, knowing that he was missing something. 

“It's from the Baird estate,” Granger finally sighed out, and Draco's eyebrows raised against his will. 

“How did that happen?” 

“It's been a decade, people are getting sloppy,” Granger shrugged, feigning a sort of nonchalance that her tensed shoulders categorically belied. “No one was going after _her_ particularly, but when one of our agents saw her, weekly, going in and out of Knockturn Alley?”

“It was easy to get probable cause for a warrant,” Draco surmised easily. He gave the vial another long look before banishing it away to his lab—the temptation, hopefully, would lessen the longer he was away from the source. 

“So you couldn't take care of the charm?” 

“There was no charm,” Pansy answered, as Granger opened her mouth to, most likely, say basically the same thing. 

“We think it's a property of the potion, itself,” Granger finished, a small smirk thrown Pansy's way for managing to insinuate herself into the other woman's speech; Pansy, for what she was worth, only gave Granger a tight smile back, and Draco actually detected a hint of fondness in the otherwise mocking expression. Granger, it seemed, did as well, if the waggle of her eyebrows was anything to go by—if Granger weren't married, Draco might have something more to say about the two of them acting the way that they did. “That's what we need you for—we can't determine what the potion is until we can actually study it without wanting to do something to violate quarantine, and I think you're the only one who might be able to.”

Draco leaned against his desk and regarded Granger with a serious expression. “Why me, Hermione?” 

“Because I think you're the best person for the job—the only person for the job.” 

“Despite everything?” 

Hermione gave Draco a rueful smile, her own arms crossing over her chest to mimic his position. She tilted her head, and they regarded one another for a few moments; despite the years that passed between them, they had managed to forge ahead, thanks in large part to Hermione's capacity to forgive and, however undeservedly, think through his side of the war, and were Draco frank, would readily admit to being a better person than he had ever known. Which might be, he supposed, one of the Gryffindor traits that weren't eye-roll worthy. 

“Draco—I think I've had enough time.” 

He nodded, clearing his throat and pretending that he turned away for any other reason than to blink away some inane, persistent moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes. He was a bloody mess, no ifs ands or buts about it. 

“Well, I have to help a certain Herbologist that you sent my way, but since it's the two of you lovely ladies, I'll take this on with the utmost precedence.” 

“How generous,” Pansy sneered, never accepting of an emotion moment. “And we would appreciate it if you didn't break confidence and show it off to Lovegood this time, yeah?” 

“If it takes me having to acquire fresh diced polliwog, I will—Lovegood's the only reputable distributor in the area that'll sell to me without five Ministry-approved fourms stamped thirty times in exactly the correct spaces; all this, you know, disregarding the fact that none of the Ministry bureaucrats will put anything in the correct order or position for me, because, well,” he gestured to himself. “So it's easier to go to Lovegood, especially if all I have to do is explain how I'm having her product interact with whatever I'm working with.” 

“Well,” Pansy sniffed, pointedly ignoring the tiny smirk Hermione sent his way at his outburst, “we expect an update in a week.” She paused, snapping her robe around her body once more, the creases from the chaise disappearing with a wave of her wand. “If you're going to be like this, however, please just report directly to Granger—that way I don't have to put up with you.” 

“Of course.” Draco nodded gravely, bidding a farewell to the two now glamoured women as they left his office. 

A new project—and a dangerous one at that, the worst thing he could contemplate doing at the moment, his mind betraying him with a creeping paranoia—how intriguing. How—did he dare use the word?—conspiratorial.

* * *

"I'm sorry—by the way."

Longbottom startled and Draco found himself hard-pressed to not snap at him for losing concentration whilst chopping ingredients; he took the knife from the other man's hand and finished giving the lemongrass a rough chop himself. 

"I'm sorry. For everything I did to you, I mean. I apologize." 

"Oh." 

Draco nodded, the flush covering his nose somehow stretching into the tops of his cheekbones. 

"You don't have to forgive me," Draco stated when the silence became too long, overlapping with Longbottom's own: 'I accept your apology.' 

"Oh! Well—" Draco floundered, hated himself for it, and continued to founder. 

"I don't forgive you." 

The floundering quickly exited but left behind sudden self-awareness. "I didn't think you did." 

Longbottom's eyes—blue, Draco noted idly in the middle of something that felt worse than losing the snitch when he could feel it on his fingertips—harbored a look Draco hadn't seen before. 

"Not yet. This isn't, y'know, definite." 

"Yeah." 

* * *

“Are you okay?” 

Draco blinked. “I'm sorry?”

“Are you doing alright? You look a little—” Longbottom hesitated on what he was going to say, a nicety that Draco found himself unerringly surprised by. 

“I could say the same for you,” Draco retorted blandly, unable _not_ to notice the haggard demeanor of the other man. “Y'need a pepper-up?” 

“Is it poisoned?” 

“Not with the Ministry checking my stores every month for that exact reason, no,” Draco replied easily, ignoring the slight bitter tang at the back of his mouth that belied his outwardly jocular manner. “I'm on probation for the rest of my natural life.” 

The bright smile Draco threw to Longbottom did absolutely nothing for the other man's inscrutability. Draco really did forget that Longbottom grew up as only the opposite side of his own coin—pureblood tradition and demeanor not all that much changed whichever side of a war you found yourselves on. His fake smile dropped and he crossed his arms as he looked Longbottom up and down. 

“Listen, you didn't come for niceties, and I don't really care to hear false platitudes, so how about you let me know what you're after, I'll do your bidding because I don't want to know what will happen to me via the Ministry if I don't, and then you can leave without having to pretend anything more than smiling and bearing it. How does that sound?” 

Longbottom's eyes flashed, but Draco didn't look away like he usually would have—he was tired, and this was the only hill he could find himself dying on, being left alone with himself and this office; the thought was both a relief and more of a punishment than the Ministry actually gave him. He didn't usually damn Potter, not after the man had saved his and his mother's lives, but it was the little things, days like this, conversations like these, that he just wished to have been left to his fate. He was a child when it had happened, but did that actually matter when other children died? The older he got, the more he didn't think so. 

“I highly doubt that you don't care to hear false platitudes,” Longbottom replied, and Draco bit at his lips to keep in the hysteria that he felt would only come out as laughter, “considering that's the only reason you got off, the only reason you're not scraping for knuts as a beggar while everyone who lost a loved one because of you spits in your face.”  
A pause. 

“How about you come to me when you've slept better, hmm?” Draco asked, deceptively light as he clutched at a wand that was closely monitored; the Ministry officials would not care about his story, regardless of any memory he could procure—Longbottom was a hero, and popular, and Draco more than understood what being popular and having people want to do your bidding would entail for anyone up against you. 

“You're pathetic.” 

“So I've been told,” Draco replied dryly, looking away from Longbottom as the man slumped. “I'll floo you over some pepper up and some dreamless sleep.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” 

Draco's gaze was already fixed on his notes in front of him, but he didn't let go of his wand—useless comfort as it was—until the wards chimed that Longbottom had left the building. 

“Stop it,” he muttered at his tarot cards, the edges of which were making spindly vines, their shadows following suit three beats late—those ones had thorns appearing in small junctures where Draco wouldn't be able to see until he pricked his fingers on them. “At least no flowers, it brings in the buzzing.” 

An airy laugh was his only answer. 

“Great. Fucker.”

* * *

_Malfoy,_

_I received both the Pepper-Up and the Dreamless Sleep potion; the floo cracked one of the vials, and so I only have the five to send back to you._

_Yesterday was my mum's birthday—I hadn't slept well the night previous._

_I will see you next week as scheduled._

_Neville Longbottom_

* * *

_longbottom_

_today not good_

_come tomorrow_

_dm_

* * *

"I can't get through your wards." 

Draco unclenched his fingers from where they were gripping his tarot cards and found himself staring at a complete spread, the knots of creeping vines peering out of the edges of his own slowly changing fates. 

He turned to the silvery remains of what he guessed to be a gryphon, but it took him awhile to grasp at his wand and alter the wards around his office to let Longbottom through. 

"Let's do this quick," he stated as soon as the other man closed the door, "I'm still not well." 

"Oh." A brief pause. "You do look a bit peaky."

Draco cracked open up an eye and shot a baleful look at Longbottom who had no right to look as particularly smug as he was currently turning. 

"I mean, more than usual." 

"I'm sorry—I'm sure you would have preferred an audience and being ten years younger for that insult." 

"Yeah, well, I figure you're basically obligated to give me at least this," Longbottom replied flippantly—Draco couldn't argue with the logic of the man, but didn't want to show him that, so settled for an inelegant shrug that turned into a careful surveil of his surroundings; the itch of being watched, the presence behind him, was at its highest in awhile.

Longbottom, thankfully, listened to Draco and went through their meeting fast. 

* * *

_Longbottom,_

_I stumbled upon something that I think will interest you highly, whilst I was extrapolating the necessary brew times of each ingredient in proportion to the base mixture. If you could endeavor to come by my office post-haste, I find as though I cannot in good will, continue my processes without your input._

_DM_

* * *

_Malfoy,_

_I've thought about it since I cut our meeting short—I know that I never gave you an answer, but I found it difficult to believe that you managed to find a better long-term solution, in a few weeks, than St. Mungo's could in twenty-seven years. Please continue to do the testing, along with our main research in case it does not pan out._

_That is what you told me, correct? Not to get my hopes up because potions rarely work out the way we mean for them to, especially those in research and development stages._

_Neville Longbottom_

* * *

"What kind of research are you doing? I mean, when you're not working on stuff for me, or Hermione, or the DoM."

Draco looked up from the paper he had been reading, blinking owlishly as he focused his gaze on Longbottom and the greasy paper bag he was holding that, if Draco's sense of smell were correct, were fish and chips. 

"Where'd you get those?" he countered, the vinegar permeating his senses until he started salivating. "Are they for me?" 

"They're to share, and they're from a muggle chippy that Luna took me to."

"Luna?" Draco asked, stuck on the name Longbottom had said. "Luna Lovegood? Blonde, Ravenclaw, a little woo-woo?" 

"Woo-woo?"

Draco gestured idly to demonstrate what he meant, and Longbottom's expression turned sour. 

"The girl tortured in your family's basement? Yeah, her." 

A pause as Longbottom stared pointedly at the arm Draco had been reaching for the bag with; it took a moment, but Draco tore his left arm away from where it had been hanging, and while not hiding it behind his back, definitely took it out of the field of play. His heart pounded, but he steeled himself against his shaking and moved back behind his desk. 

"Yes, her," Draco agreed, the words biting out more bitter than he had intended. 

"I think the only people who are woo-woo are those who followed Voldemort, y'know?" 

It was conversational, deadly, and through the haze of what had become of Draco's vision he managed to grip the back of his chair, grateful that wizards hadn't gotten into the muggle medical trend of chairs with wheels on the bottom. 

"Quite," he ground out, looking at the cards in the corner of the room, another vine pattern containing the spread—almost the same as before, but with enough difference for the reminder that your fates can, indeed, change—that was a little more than three quarters turned over. 

"I have the math we were corresponding about, here," he continued, rummaging through the papers on his desk for a moment before finding his equations. 

Finally, unable to stand his own cowardice any longer, he looked at Longbottom, handing over the parchment containing everything he had been brainstorming from the last week. The other man had a blank face, and Draco felt his own ratchet up at what seemed to be the blatant challenge. He would lose everything, had lost everything, but not this—the words were there, his actions were there, and this, the parchment with the equation that they had been working on for the last three months, was there. 

Longbottom took the parchment and walked out. 

As his magical signature left the building, Draco locked down his wards and screamed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Draco is a Seer, but only with his tarot spreads. Everything not do with the tarot cards themselves, or the interpretations thereof, is Draco's mental illness. Draco is aware of this. 
> 
> I'm happy to further clarify if/when need be :)


	3. and you? you can't live like this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A card is turned and their hands are being forced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's late, I know, but at least it's here! I've been working on a couple big bang fics, so I've been busy, haha. 
> 
> I had one of the scenes already pre-written, but after this point, everything is wholly new.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

“I just do not believe... Well, I do not believe it would be the best idea, and by that I mean to say an idea I will be able to convince my superiors is an appropriate use of public funding—I am sure you understand where I am going to.” 

“Coming from,” Draco corrected absentmindedly, twirling his quill for a moment before taking the other man in fully. 

Emil waved his left hand around in the air vaguely, and Draco could feel the disdain for such strange English phrasing pouring off of the other man; it was—rather impressive, if Draco said so himself—disquieting to be on the other end of the condescending gesture. Not the first time, certainly not the last, but always with the slightest hints of incredulity of one who grew up on the imparting end of that gesture. The shorter man, stocky in a way that no one would associate with the cigarette-thin lines of the French, fluffed out his hair in dismissal, and Draco had to literally bite his tongue to stop himself from saying anything snide about the motion. 

“So what, you won't do anything?” he asked, trying to keep himself from full resignation at the—unsurprising, really—news. 

“I did not say _that_ ,” Emil countered easily, “and if you believed that I did, I must assume that you are—how you say—off your game?” 

“Well, for now I live in a world where someone saying that something's a bad idea usually implies that it won't happen for me, regardless of if they actually said the word 'no.'” 

“I am sure you can explain that once more without using your twisty words as you do.” 

“Will you help me with the study or not, Emil?” 

Emil, who at thirty-three looked at least a decade over that, nodded shortly and checked his watch. “I must depart—my train is set to do the same in an hour—but you will have to contact your magical ministry, and I my government, before we can move forward in our negotiations. 

“You must also,” he paused and looked at Draco with a significance, “explain how it is you made something like this without the use of an already established laboratory. And when you do so? Please only talk of science, and not potions.” 

“I know how to act around muggles,” Draco dismissed, and he ignored Emil's scoff—the other man, undoubtedly, was thinking of their first presentation together, wherein Draco had gotten so nervous he had forgotten every point and started rambling on about the medicinal properties of a shaved beazor; this was, of course, much to the chagrin of Emil, who was then forced to take over after only five minutes of shocked audience listening to the crazy person who didn't know what a neurotransmitter was. 

“I know how to act around muggles now,” he finally amended. 

“I would say that how you act around me says something else, however, I do believe this just means we are more than passing acquaintances. Could it be that we are—how you say—friends?” 

“You obviously know how to say friends, Emil,” Draco scoffed, giving the older man a rude gesture as he backed out of Draco's office. 

“Yes, mon ami, I will see you soon.” 

“À plus,” Draco replied, glad that at least one obstacle, no matter how small, was eradicated from his work; Emil was his last chance before taking his product to the private market, and at that point he couldn't imagine imagine it going to the best of hands with all of his carefully placed safeguards in place—when you went private, cheaper was better, it was that simple. 

The door closed behind the older man, and Draco summoned an A-1 pad and a quill—the science of his project, Merlin help him.

* * *

"Why are your tarot cards always vines? That's what they look like, at least, to me." 

He watched warily as Longbottom poked the card floating closest to him, the quill bending from the force of his grip. Careful not to break it—this was the second to last of his favorite style and it was difficult to find what he wanted in the U.K. without having to try and find someone who would special order for him once they saw his name on the tag—he slowly let it drop from his hand and onto the parchment he was scribbling notes onto. 

"Hello, Longbottom," he replied with, wincing as Longbottom sent one of the other cards spinning into endless little circles. 

"Hello, Malfoy." 

"I'm going to answer your question from last time." 

"What?"

"Your question. You didn't stay for the answer." 

Draco managed to keep his tone mild; he shouldn't have enjoyed the look of panic in Longbottom's face; as though he had forgotten an awful question he had asked in the heat of his deadly attack. 

"My research?" It wasn't a question meant for Longbottom to answer. 

"You know how we've always been told how different we are, like mentally and physically different than muggles? That we have something they don't have?" 

Longbottom nodded slowly, eyes narrowed as though waiting for some other shoe to drop. Draco, all at once, realized what he was sounding like, understood Longbottom's hesitance, but he wanted to see Longbottom's face when he blew his fucking mind. 

"Well, it's interesting because I noticed that muggle medication was working fine on me, you know? Which—wouldn't make sense if we were so different, especially in a mental capacity. 

"So I started studying anti psychotics and their differing effects on wizards in comparison to muggles. It turns out that wizards have pretty much the same baseline for anti psychotics as muggles do. That, of course, made me realize if I could get the components correct, I might be able to make potions that mimic the same effects as anti psychotics do." 

"I don't—" Longbottom shook his head and let out an awkward chuckle. 

"Wizards don't like people who are," he paused and made the gesture that he figured had set the other off before, "woo-woo, therefore they do not make potions to help those who are. I am attempting to bridge that unfortunate gap in our medical knowledge." 

"Why?" 

Draco raised his eyebrow as Longbottom winced. 

"Why do you think? You said it yourself, Longbottom, only Voldemort's followers could be like that, that's what you said. Well, you were right." 

He smirked, gripping his elbows tightly with his hands as he tried not to think about how the first time telling someone this was to make them feel just as shitty as he did. 

"Olanzapine first, which didn't work too great. Then Amisulpride which didn't work either. After that was a litany of approved drugs and now it's finally Clozapine, which," he shrugged again and ignored Longbottom's stuttering about how he didn't have to tell him anything and though he didn't quite understand, he was sure it was something important that he didn't want Longbottom to actually know, "if that doesn't work then I'm basically screwed on the muggle front—which is another reason I'm hoping I can make this potion and have it work. Maybe magic can improve what science can't." 

"I'm sorry, I didn't—I didn't know—"

"I wasn't insulting Lovegood."

"I know."

"We're not best friends or anything, but we are on friendly terms in a social capacity." 

"I _know_." 

"I'm not saying I'm a good person or anything, I know you wouldn't believe that, but I have—"

"I know, you can stop." 

A hesitant hand on his shoulder finally shut him up and he jerked forward as though he had been hit instead. The hand quickly let go and Draco held in the gasp at the action. 

"I don't have anything for you this week," he finally decided on, realizing he didn't have the energy required to further antagonize the other—specifics weren't needed when the general was understood. 

"I'm sorry about what I—"

Draco waved his words away, tired. "Like you said before, I deserve this." 

"I didn't mean—"

"Yes, you did." 

Longbottom let out a wry laugh, less snort but somehow more annoying—maybe it was the fact that it seemed farcical this time, disingenuous in the light from whence it came. 

"I did." 

"I'll have more for you next week." 

A nod and Longbottom left. For some ungodly reason, it hollowed him out more than the week previous. 

* * *

“No, you know what?” 

Draco blinked up from his notes, reading glasses slipping down his nose a little as he rubbed at his eyes against the glare the afternoon light brought in. 

“What?” he asked, thrown off-balance and unable to land until he knew what kind of mood Longbottom was storming into his office in. “I'm sure I don't know.” 

“I _did_ think that you deserved what was coming to you, that if you were miserable, that would make me happier, would make everything better.” 

“And?” 

Longbottom shrugged. “It didn't—it only made me sad.” 

He sat down, decidedly without Draco's permission—Draco, honestly, didn't think he would have given it to Longbottom at this very moment in time, so if anything, at least the other man most likely knew that much. In Draco's peripheral, his tarot cards slowly reshuffled themselves. Longbottom sprawled himself over the chair after a moment where they did nothing but stare at one another and refuse to be the first person to speak; Draco knew that any sort of conversational norm would indicate that Longbottom had to the the one to break the silence, because only _he_ knew what he was doing in Draco's office, but the more realistic part of Draco also knew that despite all Gryffindor tendencies, Longbottom was still himself, and Draco would be the one to have to make something of this conversation. 

There was another moment where the silence went on, where Draco let the blessed quiet linger in the back of their throats, and then he cleared his throat. 

Longbottom started speaking at that exact moment, and Draco couldn't help but think it could be nothing less than a deliberate play of power—as though he knew Draco would stop his own speech in order to hear some sort of explanation, in order to understand at least one thing that was going on; it said something about the person he became after the war that he was becoming easy to read, even for thick-headed, woefully contrite seeming Gryffindors to see and interpret correctly. It was more than a little galling, and he sucked in his lips in order not to just say something out of pure spite. 

“You know my friends think I'm bonkers for trying to create a potion to help my parents' outbursts.” 

Draco snorted: inelegant, derisive, and more than a little haughty. 

“Your friends are more than a little idiotic, because—” he raked his hair back and smirked a little at Longbottom, “I'm sure you've explained to them the theory, and they just can't comprehend what you mean.” 

For some reason that made Longbottom let out a vaguely barked laugh, eyes widening after as though startled a noise came out of him at all. Draco thought back on what he said, and with a flash realized he just most certainly implied Longbottom's intelligence. 

“I'm sure Granger understands and approves whenever you speak with her,” he tried to amend, cursing himself out a second later because complimenting Hermione in his next breath probably didn't do much for whatever decorum he managed to wrap around himself whenever he encountered this newer, bolder Neville Longbottom and his own newer, chastened Draco Malfoy. 

“So it's me and Hermione then, eh?” Longbottom asked, tone light in all the right places—Draco knew it was a trap, but he found himself wanting to fall into it, no matter how obvious the ploy. 

“And Lovegood, but she'd also say that Woozles' mucus trails would do the same for half the price point.” 

A pause. 

“Let me just right this in my mind, Longbottom...”

“Neville.” 

Draco nodded, as though the conscious name change were an indication to what he meant. This was an overture—obvious, clumsy, and utterly derivative. It felt nice to have. 

“That's what I mean—we've decided to take a step forward, then. I've been sufficiently redeemed in your eyes, and you can't derive pleasure from my misery. I'm also under the assumption that Granger spoke with you because you were being utterly stubborn and wouldn't have come back as fast as you _did_ without one of those Weasley firecrackers up your arse.” 

He paused. 

“That being a metaphor, and Granger being the—” 

Longbottom groaned, theatrical. “I got it, Malfoy.” 

“Draco.” 

A blink. 

Draco tried not to fumble with his next statement, no matter how they might have felt on par with a mending charm on hairline fractures in finger bones. “If we are meant to go forward, a full effort is to be made.” 

Appropriately snotty, but the trace amounts of self-effacing derision at the tone was unmistakable for anything else. 

“Draco, then,” Longbottom agreed wryly—they both knew that it was easier this way, that if they waited until comfort came along, they would be waiting a _long_ time. 

“Neville.” 

They nodded, short, at one another. 

Draco's tarot cards ceased their shuffling and began to spread themselves out, rapidly growing vines weaving themselves easily into thin air. 

Excepting the whispers, it was quiet, nice, and they looked through one another's notes—two days earlier than expected, but a good conference nonetheless—with a calm that even their least volatile moments in the past never quite managed to attain. 

“You can say it.” Almost teasing, and Draco turned incredulous eyes to where Longbottom was not even at all trying to hide an amused grin. 

“Pardon me?” 

“That Hermione was, undoubtedly, right.” 

Draco sniffed. “As though she would accept anything less being said of her.

“It is, however,” he conceded, when Longbottom didn't seem to even take notice of the backhand in which Draco made his statement, “easier to work with you when I no longer have to wonder what will happen to me if I move incorrectly.” 

Longbottom, for what he was worth, didn't say half of the things he could have, that he might have, had they not decided upon this precarious precipice Draco could no longer think of as anything other than friendship. 

And they continued working.


	4. wrap the night around me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letters from Draco, scenes with some friends, and letters to Draco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from love is blindness- U2 (but I listen to the [Jack White version from the Great Gatsby soundtrack.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=ZWir6wUkPtw)) 
> 
> Draco makes a few points that could totally be construed as religious and that is intentional. 
> 
> There's a lot more ensamble parts to this chapter, and this fic is definitely going to be longer than I expected. So, yeah... 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

_Neville,_

_I have completed inventorying both what I have in my own personal stores and what I can attain easily enough—the perks, one must suppose, of being a decorated Potions Master, sterling reputation or no. Attached is the list that I believe you would find easier to attain. All these are necessary, but I have placed them in order of the time needed, in my estimates, to gather the necessary permits—shaving off, of course, the added weeks it usually takes for mine to filter their way through the vines of bureaucracy!_

__

_On your last note: if you can manage to get some takeaway—maybe from that curry place down the road from my office?—then I can manage a later meeting than usual; say, 1930?_

__

_Regards,  
Draco M._

* * *

_Headmistress McGonagall,_

_I am currently working on a project in conjunction with the office of Ms. Granger, and find myself in need of specialized knowledge that I believe can most thoroughly and easily be received from the portrait of Severus Snape._

_I would be most grateful if I could schedule an appointment with you to speak with him—if this is not possible, I understand, and thank you all the same for your consideration. Thank you, as well, for taking the time to read this, and I hope to hear from you soon._

_Sincerely,  
Draco Malfoy_

* * *

_Dearest Mother,_

_Grapefruit, if you can._

_Attached is usual letter. No changes really, just continuing the slog._

_I miss you._

_Your Loving Son,  
Draco xo_

* * *

_Emil,_

_Attached is my draft—does it sound appropriately scientific enough for you to fine tune?_

_Draco_

_PS- When you next see Parkinson, please inform her that I have neither intent nor design on your virtue, nor you I._

_PPS- And no, last month does not count. Nor does tomorrow; my office, 2100?_

* * *

Draco startled out of his reverie at the sound of his wards chirruping for an uninvited guest; he blinked down at the various notebooks around him, the detritus no match for his owlish gaze as he tried to place where, exactly, he currently was. He cleared off his desk with a wave of his hand—the bits and bobs of wandless magic would constitute as nothing more than negligible in the Ministry's surveillance of his deeds, mis- or otherwise—before waving his wand vaguely in the direction of whoever was waiting just outside his door. 

“Yes?”

“Is my wife in there?” 

Despite knowing that she was not, Draco gave a dutiful look around anyway. “No.” 

A pause where Draco had almost started going back to his work, thinking the other man had left the vicinity. 

“Can I come in anyway?” 

Narrowing his eyes to vicious points, Draco regarded the time, date, atmospheric conditions, and the position of the moon, before answering by cancelling the wards around the building and standing up from his desk in a staid motion. The door opened after a moment—red hair close to the top of the doorframe was the first thing Draco saw, before the rest of the lanky man folded into his suddenly claustrophobic-seeming office—and in popped a scruffy, vaguely chagrined as he rubbed the back of his neck, Ronald Weasley. 

“How can I help you, Weasley?” Draco asked, the lack of inflection in his words belying more than any overt gesture of general respect. 

“Said she was going to drop by here after work, so I figured I'd just meet her.” 

“Now pull the other one.” 

Weasley snorted—inelegant, brash, and more than being used to being called out on his own dragon dung—and shot Draco a sort of wry smile that made his throat close up in the way it always did when he realized everything he could have missed due to making a different decision or two in his otherwise erstwhile youth; Ronald Weasley was not attractive to Draco in any sort of manner, but as always, something about the undeserved kindness fluttered his chest and he was hard-pressed to not flush at the almost conspiratorial wink the man sent his way. 

“Sure, you're right then—d'ya have an idea about what Hermione'd like for a present? I have a couple, but I'd like to know if she's mentioned anything to you.” 

“Nothing expressly,” Draco finally demurred, not for lack of wracking the back of his mind, “only generalities that even you,” at this he looked Weasley up and down in an approximation of what used to be his usual sneer, “couldn't fulfill.” 

“Ha!” It was barked and Draco flinched a little at the volume despite hoping for something akin to that reaction from his former proverbial punching bag. “Don't I know it, Malfoy.

“But seriously, nothing?” 

Draco shook his head and watched as Weasley gestured to the deck of cards on his desk; despite his initial misgivings, he nodded, and the other man shuffled the tarot cards with an ease that bespoke of years of card games around small tables at family gatherings—Draco knew bridge, cribbage, but he remembered them in large, airy rooms in the middle of summer afternoons, the trappings of high society tightening around himself and his fellow children as they were poked and prodded into miniature versions of what they saw around themselves. 

“Pick one,” Draco stated after a moment, surprising even himself—Weasley looked up at him and, seeing the stolid resolve in Draco's face, looked down hard at his shuffling before coming to a halt. He took the one off of the top and flipped it around, showing the image to Draco, who nodded decisively before finding a bit of parchment to write an idea down. 

“Well?” 

“Reversed King of Cups: beware of emotionally volatile people,” Draco muttered distractedly, shaking his head at Weasley's grimace, “I don't look at the cards like that—it won't mean anything for you; it means nothing.

“Do you know anything about psychotropic properties in Hellebore and its interaction with the introduction of dried and crushed gillylizard liver?”

Weasley paused, blinked, and shook his head. 

“Then would you mind terribly calling Neville and seeing if he can pop in for a mo'?” 

“I can.” To Weasley's benefit, he didn't much react to the command beside a bemused stare and a look that Draco knew meant he was comparing his burst of intensity to his wife's own bouts of discovery—sometimes he could not believe he spent six years trying to actively avoid any comparisons to Hermione, only to turn around and feel inadequate the moment a sincere comparison was sent his way. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco watched as Weasley's patronus—a sort of dog that Draco did not recognize; despite his upbringing, he never quite managed to become a canine enthusiast—was easily conjured and sent out. He wondered, idly and with no hope that he could attain such a feat, what sort of memory could be procured so quickly as to make a corporeal patronus seem like a simple cleaning spell; of course, Draco had never been able to produce even a wisp of a form, so it's not as though he were particularly concerned as to how solid his own was. 

“What d'ya do with 'em, then?” 

Draco paused in his calculations as the words appeared from nowhere and he blinked up from the parchment he had turned to once the scrap became too small to fit everything he needed to write down. “Pardon me?” 

“Your cards? What do you do with 'em if not Divination?” 

“It is Divination,” Draco finally stated after a moment, the open curiosity in the other man's face the only reason his tongue let itself disengage from the top of his palate, “just—I can't explain it, Weasley, I just look at the cards and know what they're meant to mean; they don't usually mean what's taught.” 

“So you're like a Seer?” 

A crack went through the office, and as Weasley looked down to where Draco had snapped his quill in half, Draco himself coloured at the reaction his innate response provided the other man. 

“Something like that,” he managed to get out, more than a little bit aware of the stigma attached to putting name to what it was that he did for his own futures—everyone wanted a Seer on demand, but no one wanted to actually be associated with them outside of business transactions, excepting middle-aged women wondering if their husbands were cheating on them and teenaged couples wondering if they were destined to be together forever. He remembered, then, in a soft wave of bittersweet fondness not unlike that of submitting to fractured fingers for someone other than himself, being a a war-torn, teenager not wanting his future for love but for continued life—the day he had found his first deck of cards, the ornate box they resided in one of the few mathoms that had been left on the shelves of his father's office, having been opened only the once by the Ministry; Draco did not believe his father even cared to remember the treasure that was hidden amidst the inlaid gold filigree and opalescent curvature of its interior—the cards called to him, a longing that Draco didn't know he had to fulfill until his magic picked them up and he _knew_.

“Wicked.” 

“Wicked, indeed, Ronald Weasley,” Draco muttered, giving the other man a modicum of a smile before turning back to his scribblings. “Lemme know when you get a response from 'im, yeah?” 

The other's reply was lost in his own veering thoughts.

* * *

“So you're friends with him, then?” 

Draco scoffed. “I am _not_ friends with him, don't be absurd.” 

“Your accent came through—I heard it, and you can't deny it, Draco Malfoy, because I saw your face when you saw me.” 

“I've known him for years,” Draco replied primly, a haughty sniff—while not in his tone—heavily implied by the airs he put off. 

Hermione snorted, and Pansy nodded at the woman skimming one of Draco's texts as though that were reply enough to what he said. 

“You'd like to add something, Hermione?” Draco asked, willing—for some Merlin-foresaken reason—himself to hex his own foot because he most certainly knew what she was going to say, and he was the imbecile letting it happen. 

“You hated him for most of those years.” 

“We—the both of us,” he nodded towards Pansy to include her former-self into the portrait; blithely, he ignored the sneer of token outrage she tended to harbor when he included her in explanation of their youthful exploits, “hated a lot of people we're now on friendly enough terms with.” He tilted his head towards Hermione, as both an example and as a sort of conversation stopper. 

Hermione, in what seemed to be a typical reply when faced with a statement of Draco's she found particularly insufferable, rolled her eyes skywards before pinning him with a stunner of a look. “Will you just admit that you're friends with my husband?” 

“I suppose... We're as close as two can be, under the circumstances of our previous relationship.” 

“That's all you're going to get, Granger,” Pansy stated—a finality in her tone that brokered her intimate knowledge of Draco's reticence. 

“Oh, well, if that's all,” Hermione blustered easily, the smirk on her face betraying her amusement at his discomfort; the kiss she busked against his cheek startled a half-grin out of him, and though Draco was aware it made him look like a loon, he didn't much care with the half-smothered, fond smile gracing the face of the woman whose previous childhood torment could—the minority not centering around the Dark Lord whose shadow still loomed over their generation like a ghost unwilling to find its way beyond the Veil—be mostly attributed to him and his various cohorts. “I'm glad we've all managed to grow up, then.” 

“I believe you've always been there, turtle dove,” Draco crooned, ignoring Pansy's snort with an expertise wrought from years of doing very much the same in far more needling of circumstances. 

“Please,” Hermione responded, pushing Draco's cheeky grin away from where it continued to loom close to her own exasperated smile, “you didn't quite know me back in my formative years—I was, loathe to admit it, a bossy little so-and-so.” 

“Weren't we all,” Pansy muttered, crossing her arms as she abandoned all decorum to lean against the chair-rail lining the walls of Draco's office with a jaunty hip. 

“Now, do you have something for us, or shall we all gather some more wool for our nostalgic trips, before sauntering off with our thumbs up our arses?” 

A couple of cards lethargically turned themselves over as Draco rifled through the various bits of parchment, A1 pads, and texts that cluttered his desk in what usually was more of an organized chaos than this particular incarnation; he glanced at them briefly, disregarded the portent for the moment, and handed over his initial findings to the two women whose department's future research hinged on Draco, somehow, understanding the properties of an experimental potion that influenced the hormones of those who got too close to it, without breaking quarantine. The conversation with his old potions mentor kept replaying in his mind, and though he knew the danger of giving unsubstantiated information to a Ministerial department not well-known for its adherence to proper protocol, he also knew that the discretion of the two women would, Draco believed, circumvent any particularly foolhardy practice. Draco had become wary of those in power who didn't answer to anyone except their own notions of propriety, but he also understood that was a personal aversion, and not one that many shared after the war; the good guys won and those in power were doing it for the good of the many, or so the thought process went for the majority of the magical world—Hermione, he knew, believed differently, but with consensus few and far between in the hoi polloi, a period of blissful, post-war ignorance continued to grow. 

“Be circumspect with this, will you?” he asked as the two women poured over his tight handwriting. “It's still...” he trailed off, thinking of what he meant to say, “well, I don't quite know if these are the results that we need to see before cracking the entire thing open.” 

“I have never, in my entire career, given Needleham something that I haven't fully proved to my own satisfaction.

“I don't intend to start now.” 

Draco, despite how easy it would have been to take Hermione's statements as an insult to his prowess as a researcher, took it for the assurance it was meant to be; nothing would go further than the three of them until they were all more than satisfied with the conclusion they came up with—an entirely new sort of potion, one with properties that made Draco nervous about its origins, was something to give anyone more than a little pause. 

“Good form, woman.” 

“You as well, dear.”

* * *

Draco wasn't asleep when his alarm went off. Standing—brushing off his trousers with an easy grace that begat a feigned insouciance that no one could see but himself and those always, always watching him—from the corner in which he placed himself in order to repeal easy surveillance, he tried to ensconce himself in the knowledge that he had enough enemies—he didn't need his chemically imbalanced brain making anymore up for him. He swept into the antechamber housing his potions, the wards that made the ones around his office look like child's play, the results of his experimentation over the last few years, and peered into silver cauldron that seemed to still be in the gentle stasis of a rolling boil. No change was good, and he would do well to remind himself of that fact. No change meant a proper ratio. No change meant a chance, despite the seemingly unyielding blocks that have lined all the alleys of what was both magically and scientifically in the realm of possibility. 

Without conscious thought—a feat seemingly inaccessible to what he considered his own desultorily damnable delusions impeding his usual intelligence processes—he stirred the potion counterclockwise three times before muttering what seemed more of a prayer to something more than this world depicted; the muggles, interestingly enough, had seemed to figure out that space between science and magic and filled it with a superstition—religion, the paranormal, a gut feeling—that seemed nothing less than inspired to a man whose entire worldview had been bashed into itself until he could do nothing more than find some other form of absolution in a world that wished for nothing less than his degredation. When was enough penance enough? When was it still never quite enough? 

The potion turned periwinkle. 

He tilted his head to the side as he considered one of his last avenues close to entirely closed; hoping to counteract what would soon become an irredeemable cauldron full of metal-tasting poison, Draco distributed a handful of shaved ginger into the mess in order to counteract what must have been the dried dragonfly wings—nothing else would have reacted in that particular way. Turning to notate his findings into the common place book he kept around when doing exactly this sort of experimentation, he felt his gaze suspend itself in midair as his tarot cards ruffled themselves out from what seemed like a deep slumber. 

The cards turned themselves over and Draco—after a moment of blankly staring at the pictographs that meant nothing to him so much as a means to an end because what actually came from their presence was nothing less than an innate knowledge that Draco had forgotten he had always known, in a universe that was immutable—turned away from the portent he knew them to be. He could, he _must_ make this potion become a reality; he didn't know, didn't want to know, what would happen if he found himself failing in the one venture in a long time he could feel in his bones wanting to succeed in. 

The potion let out a whistle and Draco swore—violent and with an almost overwhelming urge to punch the wall, the desk, _something_. 

Fuck him upwind with a rusty pitchfork and bring on his Hail Mary, because this was not looking like the almost sure thing he had imparted on Neville what was only weeks before.

* * *

_Mister Malfoy,_

_Thank you for the enlightening conversation we were able to conduct after your meeting with Severus—he has, in the weeks' aftermath, amended on a few of his assertions to you and has asked me to pen those post haste. Due to the nature of your work, this is the one time I will allow myself to become an owl, but I have also enclosed, as per Severus' request, the back up of his portrait for ease of access and ease of my tensions—I am more than sure he will voice his dissatisfaction should he wish to disengage from your company._

_I have also enclosed a terms of employment in the assumption of your agreement to my proposal, the specifics of which can be found on the cover page. Suffice it to say, Mister Malfoy, that your predilection for potions has more than impressed me, and I hope to see you as an adjunct professor—I do not know of your aspirations for teaching, but I do believe it would do both you, and those disinclined to your presence, a world of benefit._

_Please respond at your convenience. I know this will be a undertaking that depends on your availability—of which I do not see much of in the near future._

_Sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_  
_Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_  
_Draco dormiens numquam titillandus_

* * *

_My darling Draco,_

_It seems as though the Ministry is still unwilling to take the risk of my passage into this country—I know I send a new request every month to no avail, but with you unable to leave the country and myself unable to enter it... I miss you terribly, my starling, and I don't care how many people before you read this; Draco, my propriety is nonexistent and I more than worry about how you're doing—darling, it's easy to lie when one has only parchment to see it._

_Attached is my usual missive—this time an entire sheet-and-half longer than last. Please send me more of your unusual partnership (friendship?) with Mister Longbottom—also, ask him if his grandmother, per chance, used to teach the piano to the hopeless cases of societal girls._

_Though I find myself still hesitant to take upon myself the cause of the youth—an old dog, I'm sure you understand, darling—I am grateful for your friendship with Ms. Granger, as she has seemed to do much for your equanimity when I know you have been struggling about your place in what once was._

_Your father sends his regards, and though he would not wish for me to tell you this, he's dying. Please consider writing to him—it's been nine years, darling, and he doesn't have much more left in him._

_I love you._

_Your Dearest Mother,  
Narcissa Malfoy_

* * *

_Draco,_

_My government is considering your proposal, which is more than I can say for the last time they last spoke about it. Also your science is good so do not worry about that part of the equation._

_Emil_

_(I cannot in good faith continue this with you anymore for I have found myself infatuated with another. I know that you are as well no matter if you do not know it yet._

_The times, I think, were good.)_

* * *

_Draco,_

_How large of an issue does this represent?_

_Neville_

* * *

_Tell me you still have the backup potion like I asked you to keep_

_NL_

* * *

_How in the **bloody hell** was this cocked up so badly?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> xoxo 
> 
> Talk to me about HP/this fic/these characters at: newyorktopaloalto@mail.com (same with any issues/concrit/concerns you might have!)

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to contact me about anything regarding the fic (or even general character shenanigans) either in the comments or at: newyorktopaloalto@mail.com


End file.
